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New York Times Takes Iran’s Side in US-Iran Talks
The New York Times building in New York City. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The New York Times coverage of the US-Iran nuclear talks seems written from Iran’s perspective.
One Times article reports that the talks “come at a perilous moment, as Iran has lost the air defenses around its key nuclear sites because of precise Israeli strikes last October. And Iran can no longer rely on its proxy forces in the Middle East — Hamas, Hezbollah and the now-ousted Assad government in Syria — to threaten Israel with retaliation.”
For Israel and America, it’s a less perilous moment, as we no longer have to worry about our planes getting shot down by Iranian air defenses. “Perilous” seems to be from the point of view of the Iranian terror-sponsoring regime. For America and Iran, it’s a hopeful moment, as we may finally eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat or, even better yet, the terror-sponsoring and oppressive Iranian regime.
The same Times article, by David Sanger and Farnaz Fassihi, reports, “Many Iranians have begun to talk openly about the need for the country to build a weapon since it has proved fairly defenseless in a series of missile exchanges with Israel last year.”
That spins the Iranian nuclear weapon as a matter of Iranian defense, when in fact the Iranians have been pursuing it for decades as part of their goal of wiping Israel off the map. Even the Times article concedes as much later on, reporting that “Iran’s nuclear infrastructure has been operating for decades and is spread around the country, much of it deep underground.”
The same Times article goes on to contend, “If Mr. Trump does not achieve full dismantlement, he will be forced to confront questions about whether he got anything more than the Obama administration got a decade ago. Mr. Trump dismissed that accord as a ‘disaster’ and an embarrassment, noting it would lift all restrictions on Iran’s nuclear production by 2030. Now his challenge, experts say, will be accomplishing more than Mr. Obama did.”
Who are these unnamed “experts”? Even if Trump simply walks away from the negotiating table without giving Iran the sanctions relief that Obama and Biden did, relief that that allowed funds and weapons to flow to Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, he’ll accomplish more than Obama did. The Obama deal provided a $700 billion subsidy to the terror-sponsoring nation that has vowed to wipe Israel off the map, in exchange for unverifiable short-term promises of a pause in work on nuclear weapons, so “accomplishing more than Mr. Obama did” is a low bar. The Times “experts” apparently don’t include any with that opinion, or, if they do, the Times doesn’t share that view with readers.
In another article, the Times portrays it as a “concession” that Iran is merely willing to talk to America.
Iran has been ardently pursuing negotiations with the US for 30 years, since the Clinton administration, because those negotiations have the potential to pay off in sanctions relief of the sort granted by President Obama’s nuclear deal, which enriched the Iranian regime so that it was able to fund more Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism.
The Times reports in another piece previewing the negotiations, also by Farnaz Fassihi: “On Saturday, Iran and the United States will hold the first round of talks in Oman. If this progresses to face-to-face meetings, it would be a sign of a major concession by Iran, which has insisted it does not want to meet Americans directly.” That’s ridiculous. Merely negotiating isn’t a “major concession”—if anything, it’s a concession by America, which might reasonably take the position that Iran must shutter its nuclear weapons and missiles programs, release political prisoners, and cease its backing of terrorist organizations before earning a meeting with the US For Iran, a “major concession” would be verifiably abandoning the nuclear and missiles programs or ending its hostility toward Israel and America. Simply having a meeting is not a “major concession.” That’s Iranian spin, which the New York Times is passing along unlabeled to readers.
The New York Times has a long and not credible history of cheerleading for Iran nuclear deals with the US. Back in 2022, it relentlessly, breathlessly hyped a deal:
March 8, 2022: “Iran Nuclear Deal Nears Completion…”
January 31, 2022: “US and Allies Close to Reviving Nuclear Deal With Iran….”
January 12, 2022: “…the US and Iran Inch Closer to a Nuclear Pact”
Yet that deal never happened, and the Times never really adequately explained to readers why it so misled them about the likelihood of it.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
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New York Times Reader Comments Shows a Global Readership Shifting Against Israel
The New York Times building in New York City. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
In March 2022, the New York Times unveiled a global strategy that spoke of targeting “every curious, English-speaking person” and playing “an even bigger role in the lives of tens of millions of people around the world.” It didn’t speak of being a New York or American newspaper.
The paper was following through on an effort it announced in 2016 as “an ambitious plan to expand its international digital audience and increase revenue outside the United States.”
The Times reported then, “Just as The Times pushed beyond its local boundaries to become a national newspaper in the 1990s, the executives said in the memo that they now saw the “opportunity to become an indispensable leader in global news and opinion’ by expanding its presence outside the country’s borders.”
How far has the Times gotten toward achieving its objective of shifting its prototypical customer from a housewife in the Westchester County, New York, suburb of Scarsdale to some college professor in Berlin or bureaucrat in Brussels?
An indication is available in the reader comments on a Times news article headlined “Autopsies of Gaza Medics Killed by Israeli Troops Show Some Were Shot in the Head.”
Many of the Israel-bashing comments on the article come from readers based outside of the United States.
“There appears to be no law at all when it comes to Israel’s prosecution of war. No constraints. No real international pressure to try and contain these all too frequent violations,” writes a Times commenter identified as Richard Smith from Edinburgh, U.K. He called Israel’s behavior “sickening.”
Another Times commenter, Hélène Volat of Paris, writes, “each time I thought of having seen the worst, Israel surprises me.”
Another commenter, “Melan” from Berlin, writes to call for sanctions on Israel similar to those on Russia: “Freeze assets, ban travel, and block arms deals for officials behind the killings.”
A Times commenter Michelle from Montreal writes, “I will never buy anything made in Israel ever again.”
Times commenter “Steve” from Toronto writes, “I really wish the USA would stop supporting this country. Have you no morals?”
Another Times commenter, Denis Coakley from Ireland, contends, “Israel has descended to the level of Hamas… Sadly this is a result of the blank-cheque given to Netanyahu by his fellow tyrant in the White House.”
The Times staff is becoming increasingly international just as its readership is. The bylines on this story include those of Christoph Koettl, a graduate of the University of Vienna, according to his LinkedIn profile, who spent eight years as an employee of or consultant to the anti-Israel advocacy group Amnesty International and its affiliates; and of Bilal Shbair, who previously worked in Gaza as an English teacher for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Reporting was also contributed by “Abubakr Abdelbagi and Naziha Baassiri,” who don’t have biographies available on the New York Times website.
The Times article says the autopsies “were performed by Dr. Ahmad Dhair, the head of the Gazan health ministry’s forensic medicine unit,” without telling readers that the health ministry is controlled by the Hamas terrorist organization, or that Hamas restricts what reporters inside Gaza can report.
Having maxed out of anti-Israel readers on university campuses that provide enterprise-wide Times access to students, faculty, and staff, the Times is now trying to increase its revenues by chasing anti-Israel readers all the way to Europe and Canada. As a business growth strategy it may make some sense. The tradeoff, though, is turning the newspaper’s comments section into an anti-Israel sewer, and also allowing the news section of the paper to be used as a platform for stories that seem calculated to fuel anti-Israel animus. That comes at some cost to whatever is left of the Times’s fading credibility with whatever readers remain from the days when the Times was a New York newspaper, or a proudly American one.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
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Not Just Hamas: PA Religious Leaders Agree That Islam Prohibits Israel’s Existence
Palestinians walk at the compound that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque, known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City May 21, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
One mistake made by world leaders and even many Israeli leaders, is to see the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a secular Muslim leadership that rejects religious war for Allah — as opposed to Hamas. But this is a fundamental misreading of Palestinians and the conflict.
Fundamentally, the Palestinian Authority’s political leaders, like Hamas’ leaders, and like most of the Palestinian population, are religious Muslims first and Palestinians second.
The message of all PA religious leaders — some appointed by Mahmoud Abbas himself — is to deny Israel’s right to exist on religious Islamic grounds.
According to PA belief, Islamic law states that land that was once under Muslim rule must be liberated from the infidels as a mandatory religious obligation. Since the land of Israel was under Muslim Ottoman rule for four centuries, the PA is prohibited from making a permanent treaty with Israel that it intends to keep.
PA Shari’ah Judge Nasser Al-Qirem explained this “fact” to worshippers at a mosque in Ramallah during a Friday sermon that was broadcast by official PA TV:
PA Shari’ah Judge Nasser Al-Qirem: “The Shari’ah legal law of this land, for anyone who doesn’t know, is that it is a waqf land … from its [Mediterranean] Sea to its [Jordan] River, this is its Shari’ah law, from its sea to its river.
The laws of this waqf determine that its status cannot be changed, not by sale and not by purchase, not by collateral and not by exchange… not by addition and not by subtraction… As for the [end] date of this waqf: It is forever and ever, and for all eternity, until Allah inherits the earth and those on it.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Feb. 14, 2025]
Following other PA religious leaders, Al-Qirem taught listeners that “Palestine” — including all of the State of Israel — is a waqf. A waqf is an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law.
Palestinians define all of Israel as waqf, and thereby Israel exists on Islamic holy land. Palestinian leaders have explained that under Islamic law Muslims are commanded to free the waqf from non-Muslims.
Similarly, PA Supreme Shari’ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash, who is also PA leader Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations, has taught that the Western Wall is exclusively Islamic — according to Allah -– and that Muslims are obligated to fight anyone who challenges this right:
Al-Habbash: “Islam is truth that is indivisible… The rights are indivisible – Give me 60% or 70% of my rights, and tell me: ‘That’s it, that’s yours, take it.’ Perhaps temporarily, yes. [But] strategically, no! … Our rights are non-negotiable. They want to negotiate over Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque – then by Allah, it is better [to be dead] in the belly of the earth than to be on its surface…
There is no negotiation on one millimeter of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, including the Al-Buraq Wall [i.e., the Western Wall of the Temple Mount[, which is an exclusive permanent Islamic waqf according to Allah’s decree… This is our right, and whoever fights us over our right is an oppressor, and it is a duty to resist the oppressors.” [emphasis added]
[Official PA TV, Jan. 20, 2023]
Repeating that Jews have no rights on Temple Mount, Al-Habbash encouraged the “Islamic nation” to “liberate Al-Aqsa with all means,” saying it was their “duty” because it is a waqf:
Al-Habbash: “The Al-Aqsa Mosque is a pure Islamic right. It is an exclusive Islamic waqf for Muslims (i.e., an inalienable religious endowment), and it is an exclusive right of the Muslims… At the UN podium, [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas spoke explicitly about the Muslims’ legal claim to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and [said] that non-Muslims have no right to it… [Israel] knows that it has no right to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and that the Jews have no right to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. But they are only fanning the fire of hostility and the fire of religious war…
The duty lies on the Islamic nation and the Arabs in general, with the governments, regimes, states, bodies, religious and popular sources of authority and [all] the peoples, to participate in defending the noble Al-Aqsa Mosque, starting with coming to it… and ending with liberating the Al-Aqsa Mosque by all possible means (i.e., including terror).” [emphasis added]
[Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Facebook page, Oct. 1, 2024]
Already a decade ago, Palestinian Media Watch exposed that Al-Habbash considers all of Israel a waqf:
Al-Habbash: “The entire land of Palestine is [Islamic] waqf and is blessed land … It is prohibited to sell, bestow ownership or facilitate the occupation of even a millimeter of it.”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 22, 2014]
The author is the founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch.
The post Not Just Hamas: PA Religious Leaders Agree That Islam Prohibits Israel’s Existence first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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This Jewish Rapper Should Be Praised for His Passover Pride
Rapper Kosha Dillz, dressed as Moses, leading a Passover seder at Coachella in 2022. Photo: @chrism_arts.
Antisemites in America — and especially in New York — are trying to make Jews feel fearful of going about their regular activities. One infamous video that went viral had anti-Israel protestors screaming that Zionists should get off the subway.
Jewish rapper Rami Matan Even-Esh — known as Kosha Dillz — decided to have a Subway Seder despite some negative comments he got last year when he did it. Dillz has visited Israel and performed for released hostages and families of hostages, as well as wounded soldiers.
“I love doing the Subway Seder because it was a breath of fresh air and some people joined in who weren’t having their own Seders,” Dillz told me in an interview.
He said his group did it on the Q train at Union Square in Manhattan at about 6 o’clock on Friday.
“People are glued to the Internet waiting for bad news, so it was nice to do something like this,” he said, adding that he dressed as Moses. “There were Black and Hispanic community members who asked what we were doing and they were receptive that we were taking pride.”
Dillz showed the Jewish pride that we all should, and he was unbowed by the threats he faced. He said showing Jewish pride and fearlessness is important in the wake of rising antisemitism.
“Last year, someone gave me the middle finger,” he said. “This year, we had no problems. Though, of course, online people will do their thing, and someone commented that we were colonizing the train. You have to laugh at them.”
Despite the Passover seder being mentioned prominently in the Christian Bible, Dillz said that many people asked him what Passover was and were unfamiliar with the holiday. He also rapped as part of the event.
“We gave the people dinner and a show,” he said, adding that there was both matzah and gefilte fish. “I think there were some worried about safety but we didn’t have one negative comment at all.”
Dillz, who will soon be releasing a documentary called Bring The Family Home about his trips to Israel since October 7 said the Israeli hostages often get forgotten in discussions, and he hopes they will somehow be returned.
Dillz, who has been a cast member of Wild ‘N Out and performs both music and comedy, said whenever possible, people should look at the bright side of things.
“I think as Jews, when we embrace our culture, we show that we are united and we’re not gonna run away in fear as our enemies might like,” he said.
Dillz, who made a music video against Kanye West when he went on an antisemitic rant, said that there should have been more outrage over the arson attack against Jewish Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence on Passover.
The rapper has taken to the streets recently not only to rap, but also to ask questions of people at anti-Israel rallies, where he calmly asks their opinions, often revealing that they have little knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Dillz said that he is genuinely curious to know what they think, but at times people responded by showing ignorance and at other times, they would simply respond with chants designed to intimidate.
As for his Subway Seder, covered by Fox 5 New York, he said it was a success.
“It was really great we could do this,” he said. “When we show our positivity and joy, it’s something that I think is really powerful.”
The author is a writer based in New York.
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